Its a family business

It been three very productive days... Finally handed my CAD stuff in - at last - not my finest moment but I'm still quite pleased with what I've done considering how difficult I found it to get going.  I've spent the rest of the time working up my Dr Martens brief and while its gone slightly awry and its a different interpretation of the brief I'm liking it very much - at the moment its looking a bit like wallpaper but there's work to be done yet

I've also got lots of drawing done and have started some interesting constructive work around lobster pots and fishing nets and some knitted chains...

its all very time consuming and the day has slipped away again - suddenly its dark!!

Following on from my last blog - as well as being surprised when I started to reflect I took the opportunity over the weekend to look back at the work I have done since September.  I wanted a
recap and to look at how I had progressed.  When I first started this course I was quite overwhelmed by some of the example sketch books we looked at and what the expectations might be.

I was down in my home town Leeds shortly after we started compiling our first assignment and I mentioned this to my son who is an ex art student.  I used to be so jealous of him going to art school every day... now the tables are turned - but he is a source of inspiration and encouragement to me as all good sons should be to their student mothers!  I told him I was having a wobble over the work and my abilities and he was really supportive.   Obviously I've dragged him up right as he was very encouraging and helpful  -Talk about role reversal, bless his little smelly cotton socks!

I was admiring some drawings he was doing - not my style, but really nicely executed, and I was lamenting my lack of skill and he brought out his early sketch books.  Now (as every mother does) I think my boy is very talented and even his early sketch books were fairly amazing but what was important was that as he went through a number of books from the following years I could see the progression and how he had improved and how his ideas flowed and fed into the different projects that he did.  It was a fascinating documentation of his art student journey.

This is what I felt when I looked over my past few months work.  Its not a massive progression but my sketch books do show a change as they evolve - there is a confidence emerging which speaks about me and the way I present things.  I like presentation and think its important and I made it part of my learning action plan to research presentation techniques... which led to me discovering 'smash' books and also lots of other interesting ways to compile and document research and ideas.  I've also enjoyed looking at other peoples blogs and how they are written and presented, I think so me of the research has paid off evidenced by the way I feel my work has progressed.

I can see how my early works have influenced my current work, some of the early samples and experiments have added ideas to what I am trying to produce.  Macrame fishing nets, knitted chains, lots of collage work... I have determined that my talents lie with the constructed  side of development, the printing is fun and will definitely be a base for future work and I feel quite pleased with what I have achieved using Photo shop - I enjoyed  thinking about application of designs particularly regarding interiors.

macrame in action!